“Well,” said Barber, “how’s that going to mark the thief?”
“Why, I’ve put half a dollar—a counterfeit one, you understand, that somebody shoved off on my mother—I’ve put it into that same pocket, and if anybody puts a hand in to haul out that half-dollar, he’ll get a mark on his fingers that he can’t scrub off in one day, now I tell you.”
“Well, that is a scheme,” laughed Barber, “but you ought to let one fellow in every room into it, for you and I can’t examine all the paws in the school, ourselves.”
“That’s so; I never thought of that,” said Raleigh.
So the two decided upon one boy in each room who should be the one to keep an eye on the hands in his class-room in case that fifty cents should be missing later in the day.
Mr. Horton having given Raleigh permission for himself and Barber to remain in the room that morning, during recess, as soon as the other boys had gone down to the playground, the amateur detectives began operations. They borrowed from the dressing-room a mirror which they hung on the wall in such a way that it reflected the hall and the door of the dressing-room to them, while they, having set open the door of the class-room, were out of sight behind it.
Five minutes of the recess had slipped away—ten, and not a person had passed through the hall.
“I don’t believe,” began Barber in a whisper, but at that instant Raleigh gave him a poke, and pointed to the mirror. Through the hall a boy was passing quickly, glancing furtively about him as he went.
While they looked, he slipped noiselessly into the dressing-room and softly closed the door behind him.
Raleigh and Barber looked at each other with astonished faces.